By Paul Trotman
For some there is a life after death
In 2006 we interviewed several people who planned to donate their bodies to the Otago Medical School for students to dissect. We asked them about their lives and their loves, their hopes, their fears, and of course their bodies. The donors and the students gave us permission to follow them through this whole process... to film everything. We were able to interview the students before they had ever been in the dissection room and were there when they first met their cadaver, made their fist cut, and when they said goodbye at the end. For the first time on film, we have the chance to share that amazing journey of the students, the donors and their families. What the students learn is far more that just anatomy. From the dead they learn life, they learn compassion and they learn humanity. This unexpectedly life affirming, sad, funny and above all human film is the result.
After their two years of dissection is over, the students get to see the interviews with the real people they dissected. The effect is profound and gives the film an emotional climax you would be hard pressed to match in any feature film, a climax made even more powerful by the fact that it is real - for some there really a life after death.
Reviews
~ "proof that primetime television can take on the big complicated stuff... excellent and moving" - NZ Listener
~ "As wracked with emotion and the collywobbles as any cliff-hanger episode of a television medical drama." - Frances Grant, NZ Herald
~ "The direction, the editing, the style of the documentary were all of such a high standard that minutes into the programme, you knew you were watching something special, something literally cutting edge... extraordinarily profound" - Jane Bowron, Dominion Post
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